Land Value Taxation will solve many of the 21st century's most serious social, economic and environmental problems, and promote justice, fairness and sustainability. We CAN have a world in which all can prosper.

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Pages I refer to often

Progress and Poverty, by Henry GeorgeHere are links to online editions of George's landmark book, Progress & Poverty, including audio and a number of abridgments -- the shortest is 30 words! I commend this book to your attention, if you are concerned about economic justice, poverty, sprawl, energy use, pollution, wages, housing affordability. Its observations will change how you approach all these problems. A mind-opening experience!

Books I Value

Henry George: Progress and Poverty: An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth ... The RemedyThis is perhaps the most important book ever written on the subjects of poverty, political economy, how we might live together in a society dedicated to the ideals Americans claim to believe are self-evident. It will provide you new lenses through which to view many of our most serious problems and how we might go about solving them: poverty, sprawl, long commutes, despoilation of the environment, housing affordability, wealth concentration, income concentration, concentration of power, low wages, etc. Read it online, or in hardcopy.

Bob Drake's abridgement of Henry George's original: Progress and Poverty: Why There Are Recessions and Poverty Amid Plenty -- And What To Do About It!This is a very readable thought-by-thought updating of Henry George's longer book, written in the language of a newsweekly. A fine way to get to know Henry George's ideas. Available online at progressandpoverty.org and http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

Where Else Might You Look?

Wealth and WantThe URL comes from the subtitle to Progress & Poverty -- and the goal is widely shared prosperity in the 21st century. How do we get there from here? A roadmap and a reference source.

Reforming the Property Tax for the Common GoodI'm a tax reform activist who seeks to promote fairness and reduce poverty. Let's start with the enabling legislation and state requirements for the property tax. There are opportunities for great good!

Notes

December 19, 2012

Foresters Fined for Improving Town (1903)

In
every city, old ramshackles and vacant lots are to be found even upon
the leading thorofares. Side by side with magnificent modern office
buildings are to be seen wooden shacks and tumble-down one or two
storied buildings which have long survived their usefulness. They
remain, however, because they enable the owner of the land to collect
rent enough to pay the taxes, while he profits by the increase in the
land values due to the growth of the community. Yet the man is not to
blame, it is our system of taxation which is at fault.

Many
examples of these things may be seen in Toronto, and for purpose of
illustration we have selected the two northern corners of Bay and
Richmond streets. On the west side is the beautiful building of the
Foresters, a brick and stone structure eleven stories high and one of
the finest in the city. On the east side the same area of land is
occupied by seven buildings. Three of these are four storied brick
warehouses assessed at $18,000, while the remaining buildings are of the
dilapidated kind.

The
assessed value of the land on which the Foresters Temple stands is
$35,157 and the building is assessed for $450,000. The opposite corner
about the same extent is assessed at $37,343 and the buildings at
$23,000. The tax upon the land is therefore about the same, but the
Foresters have to pay about $8,500 extra taxes every year because they
expended nearly half a million dollars in employing labor and
beautifying the city.

Can anything be more absurd? A
land owner keeps a vacant lot unimproved, or allows old buildings to
cumber the ground and we tax him very lightly, as tho he was worthy of
all encouragement. But when any one has the enterprise, or shall we say
the temerity, to erect a beautiful building, and thereby increases the
accommodation for men, employing labor and adorning the city, we treat
him as tho he was a bad citizen and levy a fine upon him. Call it what
you will, a tax or an assessment, it is still a fine, tho unfortunately
for him, it is collected not once but every year as long as the building
remains valuable. The facts that he has increased the accomodation
there is for business or provided homes for the people are not
considered as extenuating circumstances. The fine is in proportion to
the benefit he has conferred on society.

When
will men learn that the way to encourage the creation of wealth, the
erection of homes and. the carrying on of industries, is not to fine men
according to the benefits they confer upon their fellows, but to exempt
all these things from taxation and place the tax on the land value? It
must be remembered that land values are created by the community, not by
individual effort, and are therefore justly chargable with the expenses
of the community.

Alan C. Thompson in The Canadian Single Taxer, reprinted in The American Cooperator (1903)